Not pictured: rat race sprinting through the airport to catch a flight followed by a five hour plane delay, wrangling with car rental vultures at 4am, sleepless camping nights after overestimating spring temperatures in Oregon, driving 5 hours through mountains to find the back entrance to Crater Lake still closed for the season, figuring it out, figuring it out, figuring it out, anticipating being snatched by a mountain lion in the middle of the night while peeing in the woods, crying at Denny's, crying around a campfire, crying because a 2000 year old tree put you in perspective, crying on an air mattress on a stranger's floor, crying after driving through rush hour traffic in San Francisco, crying at airport terminals.

Art and travel and all beautiful things are not made in a vacuum and all of those things were just as present as the more picture-worthy ones here. But if sleepless camping nights didn't exist, we wouldn't have been awake at 5am to see the sun come up through the dreamiest morning fog (pretty sure that made me cry, too). And if you weren't faced with challenges, you'd never learn how to figure things out.

Not pictured: rat race sprinting through the airport to catch a flight followed by a five hour plane delay, wrangling with car rental vultures at 4am, sleepless camping nights after overestimating spring temperatures in Oregon, driving 5 hours through mountains to find the back entrance to Crater Lake still closed for the season, figuring it out, figuring it out, figuring it out, anticipating being snatched by a mountain lion in the middle of the night while peeing in the woods, crying at Denny's, crying around a campfire, crying because a 2000 year old tree put you in perspective, crying on an air mattress on a stranger's floor, crying after driving through rush hour traffic in San Francisco, crying at airport terminals.

Art and travel and all beautiful things are not made in a vacuum and all of those things were just as present as the more picture-worthy ones here. But if sleepless camping nights didn't exist, we wouldn't have been awake at 5am to see the sun come up through the dreamiest morning fog (pretty sure that made me cry, too). And if you weren't faced with challenges, you'd never learn how to figure things out. Read more about the story here.

So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a person’s living spirit is their passion for adventure.